By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce Istanbul guard Sinan Guler has teamed with his brother and father to create Guler Legacy, which, in collaboration with Ozyegin University, hosts a basketball camp for 150 kids. The camp is held at the university on the Asian side of Istanbul, just a few kilometers away from where Sinan Guler plays his home game at Ulker Sports Arena. Sinan, his brother Muratcan and their father Necati, a former Turkish national team player, host this camp for kids between the ages of 11 and 18.
The camp was inspired by the experiences of Muratcan and Sinan at different basketball camps in their youth, including one hosted by one of the all-time greats of the game. “We were very fortunate to spend several summers in the United States to attend basketball camps,” Sinan said. “Two of those were Michael Jordan’s own basketball camps and it sure made an impact on my character as a basketball player to attend all the camps I have been to.”
Sinan Guler started the camp at the right time, with basketball soaring in popularity in Turkey after the country hosted and won the silver medal at the 2010 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Sinan was a member of that team.
“After the 2010 World Cup, I started to think that I should create opportunities to share our family’s experience with kids somehow. Differing from the general approach in Turkey, I tried to duplicate the basketball camps I had been to and share it with kids in Turkey and close countries,” Sinan explained. “To make the camp as close to perfect as possible, I am around the camp all day long. Being married now, I do tend to go home after the kids go to sleep and arrive back at the campus when they enter the court in the mornings… I try to spend as much time as possible with kids to share our experience and motivate my team to offer the best possible service.”
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